


Zero and Three

by AMMO121



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26135998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMMO121/pseuds/AMMO121
Summary: Reiju understands her place in this world, and how to survive in it. A few words from Sanji is enough to change everything.Or Reiju gets tired of living in fear of her own family and makes the choise to run away from home. She runs to the only person she knows outside Germas walls.
Relationships: Vinsmoke Reiju & Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 9
Kudos: 91





	Zero and Three

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this sitting in my docs for at least three years now, and I like what I have written already, even though its not complete. I haven't made any progress on finishing it, so maybe some feedback will help.
> 
> Would you believe me if I told you I wasn't that big of a fan of Reiju when she was first introduced? Shes grown on me since though. 
> 
> Please enjoy and sorry for any mistakes. I edited this while I was half a sleep.

1.

Gunfire and the clashing of swords aren’t quite enough to cover up the sound of her breath or the extra loud beating of her heart. Her hands are sweaty, a feeling she's not used to. Even her father's – Judges–training wasn't enough to make her break out in a sweat. Emotions can do the strangest things to people. One prime example was her current situation, where her feelings are urging her to break her brother out of his prison and help him escape from the kingdom. Her mother's smile flashes in Reiju’s mind and she tightens her hold of Sanji's hand and continues to move through the chaos, taking down every opponent when needed – be they Germa or not. Reiju will see to Sanji’s freedom – for Mother and the kindness that she gave her life for.

Reiju scans the battlefield the best she can until her eyes stop, catching sight of a nice looking ship docked at the harbor. The soldiers appear to be too busy in their fight to pay it any attention. Good.

“There,” She points the ship out to her brother. He's breathing hard, but unlike her, his lack of breath is probably the result of his exhaustion. It wasn't like there was too much room for a lot of exercise in that little cell. “Get on that ship, find people that care for you and never look back!”

Sanji looks between her and the ship, there are tears coming back to his eyes. Reiju can feel her own tears, and it feels disconcerting for her to let others see them. More strange emotions.

“Reiju,” He starts, but starts to choke on whatever he was going to say next. Sanji takes several deep breaths like he's trying to steel himself, trying to build himself back up. He'll need to, she's sure, but there is no time for self composure in the middle of a battlefield.

“Sanji,” Reiju breathes, and suddenly she's aware of how little she's said his name. She had avoided talking about him for the sake of appearing uncaring. Reiju had been scared that any emotions beside spite and grotesque amusement might color his name as it passed her lips. Reiju had been afraid that her true nature would be discovered and suffer the same fate as her second youngest brother. She doesn't bother hiding any emotion this time, there's no point to her false pretense. “Go.”

Suddenly she's stiff and holding her breath. Sanji… Sanji is hugging her. It's baffling. Sanji had never done anything to hint at any negative feelings towards her or her lies, but never had he been particularly warm. Well, beyond his natural warmth to everything. There had been no happy smiles aimed at her direction or-or hugs. Just quite understanding between two completely different kinds of survivors.

And despite that here he is, hugging her. It… is strange. Warm. Unlike the rare not-quite-real hugs Judge would sometimes bestow upon them. Not Sanji, though, he never hugged Sanji. Judge’s affection had to be earned through the blood of others and being perfect pawns to his game. (Sanji could – would – never fit those expectations.)

Sanji's hug… isn't. It isn't anything except the first warm hug she's had that wasn't bestowed by a sick and frail mother. (And even Sora's hugs weren't… weren't this.) But it's also everything. It's warmth, so much so that she feels as if her very breath is being stolen from her lungs. 

Reiju wants him to give it back, along with whatever else is being taken from her. In the single span of a second that she spent in his embrace, she lost her ability to look the other way; Sanji stole her strange contentment in the way things were – Reiju’s tears start anew in her eyes.

Sanji is naive, but not stupid. He knows as well as she does that this very well could be the last time they ever see each other.

“I love you, Reiju,” Was a mere whisper in her ear, but he might as well have screamed it for the whole battle, sea, and world to hear. None of her brothers had ever uttered those words to her – Reiju’s sure the other boys have never said them to anyone, and if they had surely they never meant them. Love is an emotion, and emotions are an even stranger concept to the other Vinsmoke siblings then they are to her. At least the ones that matter. Only Sora has ever looked her in the eyes and meant them, Reiju is positive. Not even Sanji has let those words pass his lips in her direction when they were younger.

And yet, here they are, two children standing at the edge of a ranging warfield on a bloody battlefield where they had no right to be..

Reiju's hold tightens to the point that it must be hurting her less indestructible sibling, but he does nothing to protest the hold. Sanji just holds her closer in return. 

Reiju knows she's being weak, but she wants to bottle this moment up and hold it to her heart forevermore – she wants to let these feelings warm her heart. But Reuji has been selfish enough for one lifetime when it came to Sanji.

She makes up her mind in that moment, and knows that it’s time that she stopped half-assing her help.

Reiju pushes Sanji away. Not as hard as she might or as far should have, but enough to put distance between them. Just far enough to where their tears no longer fell on each other.

“The world's a really big place!” She cries, gripping his arms. “One day … you'll definitely meet people who'll treat you the way you deserve to be treated!”

Sanji sobs. 

Reiju gives him a gentle shake. The ship won't stay docked forever, not with a war on its doorstep. It's his only ticket out of there and Sanji can't risk missing it. She won't let him. Reiju shoves him, lightly at first, then a little harder. Not enough to send him to the ground, but enough to get him moving.

“Suck it up, quit crying like a baby,” Reiju ignores her own tears and points towards the ship again. “And just do it already!”

Sanji turns, hesitates for a moment, and finally he takes off – eyes never leaving that ship.

Reiju… she falters, sobs shaking her body violently. Her voice is hitched and broken when she shouts after her brother. “I love you too Sanji! Don't you ever forget it!”

Seconds later, Reiju laughs, because she can't tell if Sanji tripped because of an inconveniently placed rock or because he heard her over the roar of battle.

Reiju watches Sanji until she can no longer see his back.Then she stands there and watches the ship – the Orbit, painted across the side in curvy Common lettering – as it raises anchor and sails away.

Her tears do not stop. But soon it starts to rain, so who can really tell.

*

2.

Reiju flinches once when Judge uses one of the clones as a shield. She never makes the same mistake again.

*

3.

It’s a dangerous dance that she does with her brother's sanity and tempers. She has to appear as their equal, but not let them think they can push her around. It’s a tightrope that she’s been balancing across since the boys first learned how to walk, how to hurt and how to listen and believe in Judges words. 

If they think she’s too soft, like Sanji, she’ll end up being ganged up on and every day will be a living hell. If she pushes too far in the other direction, acts too high and mighty, then you might view her as a threat or a nuisance. 

She’s not sure which possibility scares her more. Not that it would matter, either one leads to her being stalked by monsters behind every corner. 

She refuses to let this lead to her looking around every corner in fear. 

(She won't admit that it's far too late for that. She's lived in fear so long she doesn't understand what it's like not to be on content alert.)

*

4.

Germa 66 is a moving kingdom, but even they receive the newspaper ever once in the while. Judge only pays attention to the political happenings, and ignores everything else. Which Reiju thought was very stupid, not that she ever voiced this out loud. Knowledge was power – and knowledge comes in many forms.

Such as how a few simple words were enough to nearly knock her off her feet despite her immense strength and endurance.

'World Class Cruise Ship 'Orbit' Sunk At Sea By Pirates'

No known Survivors

Father does not know the name of the ship that took Sanji away, he's never asked. (Reiju doesn't think she'd tell him the truth if he did.) Judge simply acts as if nothing ever happened. He pretends that he never had a third son named Sanji that he had kept locked up in the dungeons like a monster.

Reiju keeps her face carefully blank. She is thirteen now and has long since mastered the art of donning as many masks as she needed. Reiju knows that she might – will – cry when she gets back to her room. She never lets the tears fall here and now. She won't let them mock his death once again, if he really is dead. Reiju hopes Sanji has kept that habit of being 'not dead'. It's a good habit.

Reiju folds the article carefully, false indifference is the mask she wears now. She puts the scrap of paper in her pocket along with several other, less important ones, Reiju will keep most of them she knows. Put them in books or inside boxes. Right before or possibly after she cries.

Knowledge is power. But Reiju is starting to truly understand that power isn't everything.

*

5.

She is fourteen when she stumbles across one of the maids, beaten and bloody beyond recognition. Reiju is not stupid, she recognizes her brothers handy work. She should have known that they would eventually go looking for another outlet for them to demonstrate their superiority and unleash the violence they had once taken out on Sanji. 

She calls for a doctor in the most disinterested manner she could muster and later that afternoon lightly bitches at the boys for leaving their messes around for her to clean up. 

She wishes she could stop thinking about how that incident could escalate or how much she will actually care if it does.

*

6.

She's fifteen and she just finished cleaning blood off her hands. It wasn't her first murder. But it was the first time she's killed someone who wasn't a Germa clone. Practice, Judge had said proudly when he had first introduced the new method of training back when she was twelve.

A small part of her is miffed that she wasn't allowed to use her poison to finish off the man. He wasn't someone of stature or importance, but he was a pawn in someone's game and Judge wanted to send a message. A violent message. Personally, Reiju thought carving 66 into the man's back was going overboard, but it was the message the King wanted to send – so a message she sent.

Deep red soon turned to pink as the stained water swirls down the drain.

Thunder roared violently above them, and down below the waves were strong enough to shake the ship, the sea after all did not care whether it was a mighty Germa vessel or a dingy.  
In the near distance she thinks she hears something explode. Reiju doesn't stop washing her hands.

There are alarmed shouts from soldiers. A fire, they warn.

Reiju runs her fingers under the gentle flow of the water absentmindedly. She waits for a moment, her head tilts when there appears to be a delay. Soon enough, another explosion shook the ship. She nods to no one in particular and turns off the faucet and dries her hands on a towel.

Exiting her large bathroom, Reiju walks over to her bed first. On it lies her travel bag. A little too large to be safe or smart but the lifetime of luxury she was accustomed to can only be suppressed so much. 

Reiju feels as if she needs to carry everything she owns and then some on her trip; but the rational part of her claims that she only needs to save up enough money to buy that later on. So Reiju starts to gather as much beli as possible and reasonably within the time frame she has, and hopefully without planting too much suspicion. It's unsurprisingly easy. Judge is too confident – egotistical – to ever believe someone would betray him, especially one of his own children who he's watched so carefully over the years. Judge is too trusting and it will one day be his undoing.

Reiju goes through the bag one last time, making sure that all of her beli is wrapped in several layers of cloth – in order to keep it from clanking together and alerting others to her wealth. It wouldn't do to kill when she would rather avoid it.

She triple checks to make sure that her less easily replaceable possessions are there and well protected against the water. Reiju could always gather more beli, but some things she will never get back if lost.

After making absolutely sure she has everything, Reiju nods in satisfaction, quickly closing and securing the bag. She picks it up and throws it over her shoulder, the weight was nothing to sneeze at – for a normal human. Reiju barely noticed it.

Reiju takes one last look around her room – ignoring yet another blast. Everything was in order. She'd made sure not to take too many soldiers with her for this job, she had only brought enough to run the ship smoothly. The explosions – all nine of them – will either be blamed on the storm or a pirate attack, she doesn't particularly care which Judge decides to believe. All that matters is that he believes that she's dead. And if the cost of that is fifty or so clones – then so be it. Reiju is already swimming in their blood, what's another couple dozen.

Reiju has a small life boat waiting for her – a Germa one, not the flimsy ones that some cruise ships use – and she'll take it to an island four days from her location. The destination she has in mind is not the closest or biggest island, but it's far enough to where they won't look for her. The fact that the island is also home to a small but quality ship building company is a huge plus. Reiju doesn't need anything big, just something that will get her through storms without trouble and won’t require a large crew to operate. Or a crew at all, preferably. She just needs the boat to get to her destination first, then she'll worry about long term when the time comes.

Who knows how long she'll be looking, anyway – she imagines that a floating restaurant would be at least a little difficult to find.

Reiju pats her front breast pocket where the article is nestled. The passage praises the food and service of the floating restaurant and babbles on about the establishment’s rising fame. Reiju has opened the article only a few times, but she didn't need to look at it a million times to know that smile, that hair, and that very familiar eyebrow.

The ground shakes again as Reiju picks up her rain cloak off of the coat hook and flings it over her shoulders, making sure to cover her bag. She nods to herself a final time before she opens the door and steps out into the storm.

*

7.  
It took her three weeks, most of which was spent making sure that Judge bought into her fake death and creating false trails for good measure in case he didn't. 

The Baratie is easier to find than she had feared, but Reiju guesses that they wouldn't get many customers if it was near impossible to find the restaurant. She spends the last two days sailing large circles just outside the restaurant's sight, nerves always staying her sails when she has resolved to get close.

Reiju also spends those two days derating herself for being such a coward. She is–was–the eldest child of a powerful kingdom, and she will not hide behind what if’s, would be’s, and such nonsense. The two of them left off on a good–if not bitter–note and she doesn’t believe Sanji’ll harbor any ill feelings towards her–not if he’s anything like she remembers. It’s been four years now–Reiju doesn’t fear that he’s changed so much. 

Maybe she should have.

Once her ship - more of a small boat really - was tied off Reiju didn't let herself falter. She had already put it off for far too long, and she was getting quite tired of the way it was fraying her nerves. It’s a very unpleasant sunsation. 

She makes sure all of her possessions are secured and locked away. She also makes sure to grab a fairly large bag of coin before she steps onto the restaurant. She plans on eating, if she's welcome and she feels the–strange–need to make sure Sanji is being well taken care of. If that means slipping a couple hundred Beli into the right hands then so be it. 

Reiju mostly just needs to see, to know.

The doors are already opened when she walks through them and the smells– quite heavenly–and voices wash over her. It makes Reiju slightly uncomfortable, she isn't there for a mission and Judge would never allow them to eat amongst peasants. Though this is its own special kind of mission, in a way. 

There is a man, sharply dressed in East Blue formal wear. He's talking to her, accent unfamiliar but Reiju chooses to ignore him. Because just at that moment she sees a small figure walk through a set of swinging doors.

Reiju was dressed in a plain, but nice looking, dress that she had bought off the last island she'd visited. It had caught her eye right before it captured her heart, the light shade of pink matches her natural hair color. Granted, it's not as fancy as any of the Germa dresses that might still be gathering dust back in her old room, but it has a quiet charm that she loved immediately. Judge would have never allowed her to wear something so plain and that just makes her love it all the more. 

He wore chef whites and a large smile, he looked like he was going out to take orders, with his notepad and pencil ready. The boy Reiju was seeing now practically glowed in comparison to when she last saw Sanji. It’s a wonderful look on his young face. 

At least it was until he saw her. The second he catches sight of her, Sanji freezes, drops his notepad and pencil, and screams like someone had just stabbed him. 

Reiju’s whole body tenses up. She doesn’t even have enough time to think about running before the same doors that Sanji had just stepped through fly open and an older gentleman storms out, worry and rage at war on his face.

Reiju may have miscalculated.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and kudos!! Especially if y'all want to know what happens next bc I haven't even started on the next part. I know what I want to include tho. Imagine if you will: Zeff training Raiju after a battle of wills bc ya know the whole 'dont hit women' thing.
> 
> Oh, and Raiju running into the Whitebeard pirates.


End file.
